Thursday, March 19, 2026

Two-fisted tales of etymology

'I'm telling you—decimate means to reduce by one tenth!' 'It's in the word! Like decimal!' 'Yeah, yeah. It's off to Pedant Quarantine for youse two. Don't worry—we'll keep you there for exactly forty days.' Agatha sniggered. Fucking pedants.

1 comment:

Josh said...

Bugger me - turns out there *is* an audience for etymology nerdism. I do need to point out that, as a former linguistics student, I believe that usage is meaning, and "decimate" has been used to mean "destroy" or "devastate" for centuries...